The storm was passing away; wet, weary, and very much "out of sorts" by their unwonted exertions, the quartermaster and the village dominie, a thickset, sturdy old fellow, clad in rusty black, with a tie perriwig and square buckled shoes, a very wrinkled and somewhat careworn face, arrived at the Castle to make their report to Lady Rohallion, who had anxiously awaited the events of the night.
With that love of the marvellous and the morbid peculiar to their class, her servants had every few minutes brought intelligence of the number of corpses, gashed and mangled, which strewed the beach; of treasures and rich stuffs which came ashore from the wreck, and so forth; but, by reading her letters and other occupations, she had striven to wean herself from thinking too much of the terrors that reigned without, though every gust of wind that howled round the old tower brought to mind the bulged ship, and made her sigh for the absence of her husband and son, both far away from her; and now starting up, she listened to the narrative of Dominie Skail and his gossip, Mr. Girvan.
"Ugh!" concluded the latter; "I've never had such a soaking since I tumbled into the Weser, in heavy marching order, the night before Minden; and drowned I should have been, but for the ready hand of Rohallion."
"But this child you speak of—where is it?" asked Lady Winifred.
"Wi' auld Elsie Irvine, down by the coves, my lady," replied the dominie, with one of his most respectful bows.
"The poor little thing is alive, then?"
"Yes—alive, warm, and sleeping cosily in Elsie's breast by this time—cosily as ever bairn o' her ain did."
"Bring this child to me in the morning, dominie—you will see to it?"
"Yes, my lady."
"A boy, you say it is?"